“Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, said the company had removed the app “because it violated our developer guidelines.” Ms. Muller added: “Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or group in harm’s way.”“

This is simply an excuse for censorship.

I’ve been of course boycotting Apple (and switched to PC hardware/Linux) ever since they let me down with my broken iMac G5 after a Leopard “upgrade” that went badly wrong and when they then even removed my post to their forum about the matter in April 2008.

“Speaking to reporters on a visit to US troops in Afghanistan, Gates smirked on hearing the news. “I hadn’t heard that, but that sounds like good news to me,” he said.”

Since Julian Assange is simply supposed to clear his good name in front of a Swedish court one can only assume that the US defence secretary was glad that this matter can now be cleared up… Right…? Right…?

Consumers, Freedom of Speech and Internet-Vietnam

After Amazon, EveryDNS, Tableau Software, PayPal, Switzerland’s PostFinance and Mastercard now Visa joins the club of “independent” entities that consumers who care about free speech will want to investigate for their business practices and may want to avoid in the future:

It’s a bit hard to catch everything that’s being said in the V.O., so here is the text from the video’s YouTube page (click those arrows under the total views number to see it):

“Corrupt governments of the world, we are anonymous. For some time now, voices have been crying out in unison against the new ACTA laws. The gross inadequacies of the new laws being passed internationally have been pointed out repeatedly. Our chief complaint is that such measures would restrict people’s access to the internet.

In these modern times access to the internet is fast becoming a basic human right. Just like any other basic human right, we believe that it is wrong to infringe upon it. To threaten to cut people off from the global consciousness as you have is criminal and abhorrent. To move to censor content on the internet based on your own prejudice is at best laughably impossible, at worst, morally reprehensible.

The unjust restrictions you impose on us will meet with disaster and only strengthen our resolve to disobey and rebel against your tyranny. Such actions taken against you, and those you out source your malignant litigation too, are inevitable, unavoidable and unstoppable.

That’s it for Amazon for me then. I was just about to order a whole bunch of DVDs and I do like the idea of voting with my wallet. Boycott Amazon now!

WikiLeaks is the best thing that could have happened to this crazy world we live in. I can’t express with words how grateful I am for the courage of all those making this possible. Finally some sanity.

Being a 100% Atheist I usually don’t quote from that particular book, but this is a good one: “The truth shall set you free”

Update 2: As always my favourite news source for breaking news, also one of the best ones for a quick overview of all new important WikiLeaks is BBC News as well as their Wikileaks revelations (www.bbc.co.uk)

And here in Europe there is now one buyer less for “The Hurt Locker” DVD: me.

I’m quite of a fan of Kathryn Bigelow’s work, I was hyping that movie (among my friends) long before everyone was only talking about the movie that brought DRM to the mainstream cinema, “Avatar” (and no, I still have not seen “Avatar” yet because of the DRM they use).

From now on I will write about individual Hollywood movies and pick them out for boycott – just like Hollywood picks out individual fans that they’ll sue!

I love (good) movies. I don’t “pirate” movies for one good reason: “piracy” simply helps promoting (Hollywood) movies and I wish people would stop distributing what I think is really to about 9/10 unwatchable anyway.

Yet if Hollywood continues to sue my movies loving brothers and sisters I will stop buying from Hollywood entirely and I will stop watching new Hollywood movies entirely.

And in the long run:

I hope that all sane and creative people will stop working for an industry that has lost its touch to the audience long ago.

And this is not even talking in detail about the incredible superficiality and the poor handwork (e.g. scripts) that Hollywood pushes on the market these days.

I am specially sad that the makers of “The Hurt Locker” are now joining in the corporate fascism tactics that Hollywood is using. This movie is an exception, it’s actually really, really good – yet I will not buy it on DVD now, the movie simply will not exist in my collection, it will be missed, yet this is what needs to be done now.